I have a friend who keeps saying they don't understand the Avengers phenom, so I started thinking about it. Humans love mythology. Always have. The Bible got turned into an instruction manual and history/science textbook in this country & lost the magic. So Americans craved BIG stories that tell deep human truths on a legendary scale. Some comic books were telling those myths. Some brilliant filmmakers decided to use modern CGI tech to spark the American mythical imagination. Magic!

2/2 We can learn. We can change. We can grow. God never writes us off. God can use us. Yesterday's lectionary scripture tells the story of Peter telling God that he'd never touch anything unclean, or be around "those" people, & God showing him that there are no "those" people. We're all clean. Peter learned. He grew. He changed. I am praying that God will use me to spread the message that there is no "us" & "them". That's the message I shared all year with some beautiful 4 year olds. <3

Yesterday, I taught the last Sun School lesson for this class of kindergarten students. I love those kids & I've really enjoyed teaching this class. This year, I've had a chance to look at how I learned these familiar Bible stories in a conservative Evangelical upbringing & think about how I understand them differently now. Yesterday's lesson was about Saul "seeing the light" & becoming Paul. I told the class that sometimes we are going to be really wrong about something, but we can learn. 1/2

I want to write a free, copyleft book about how to thrive on low income in the USA, because all the books on personal finance give advice like "don't buy a latte every day," instead of "first, get your staples at the food bank, and *then* any other food via food stamps."

I've been writing an outline, and I need more sources. What books and links can you tell me about that are like more the food stamp example? (And please retoot!)

A podcast made me very happy this morning. Pete Holmes was a guest on the wonderful Unorthodox podcast, talking about Ram Dass and Michael Gungor @vishnu . So many podcast loves colliding in one space. Delicious!

Sometimes I wonder if the phenomenon of gender dysphoria is more pronounced in societies with more gender stereotypes. So, someone may think, "I have a vulva, but I don't feel female, b/c I have "male" preferences/behaviors(P/B)" or "I have penis but don't feel male b/c I have "female" P/B", but those P/B are just _human_ P/B that we've _labeled_ as gender specific. Do we paint people into a corner by saying things like "REAL boys don't like nail polish and lace"?

Yesterday, in the prayers of the people at our church, we prayed, "Protect victims of sexism, abuse and gender-based violence. Restore dignity to those marginalized because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Hear us, O God. Your mercy is great." To this prayer, I say, Amen!

I decided to listen again to my audiobook of Searching for Sunday, read by the author, Rachel Held Evans. I was listening on earbuds in the grocery store and had to quickly hit pause to keep from weeping in the frozen food aisle. It's just so unfair! It just absolutely sucks that she's gone so soon!

Paul was well educated, a theologian, scholar of scripture AND firmly at home in Roman Helenistic culture. Literate and articulate, he was a good ambassador to spread the "way" of Jesus to both the Hebrew and Helenistic people who were interested in it. The church preaches so much of Paul for practical reasons - we have so much of his teaching preserved in writing, and it was written for the express purpose of teaching the "Christian" theology to people who were not familiar with it.

June will be here before you know it! I thought y'all would appreciate this T-shirt that's perfect for Pride month. I love it. (They sell them on the Bitter Southerner website. The Bitter Southerner is worth a read, BTW.